"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Can Bernie's Political Revolution Win One For Eric Kingson In Syracuse Today?

>

Eric and Bernie on Friday in Syracuse

Sunday, the Washington Post decided to speculate on what happens to Bernie's revolution from here. The Clinton campaign will probably get the last majority of Bernie voters-- polls indicate as much as 88% of them already-- but what about the energy and the fundraising? When that flow to a campaign to put someone into office who many Bernie supporters see backing the same agenda that they were motivated to oppose? The Hillary delegates in the platform battles have already voted down a stronger $15/hour minimum wage proposal by Keith Ellison, voted down opposition to the TPP and fracking, voted down pretty much everything that most excites many Bernie supporters.Friday Bernie made his first congressional campaign stop in Syracuse and it was for Eric Kingson, co-founder of SocialSecurityWorks, someone Bernie has known and worked with for years. 500 people showed up at the downtown ­Oncenter, making it the biggest rally, by far, for any congressional candidate in Syracuse this cycle. The Post asserts that "the campaign stop, Sanders’s first for a congressional candidate, offered a glimpse of the post-presidential-bid figure he would like to become: a politician who uses his unexpectedly strong showing in the presidential race to push his progressive policies in Congress, in campaigns and across the country."This is a tough race-- with 3 Democrats facing off against each other, Kingson, the progressive, and two unaccomplished party hacks, one backed by Steve Israel and one backed by Gillibrand and Schumer, neither showing even the slightest indication of being able to make any mark in Congress whatsoever. The DCCC and EMILY's List, representing the right-of-center as usual, have backed Colleen Deacon, a low-level Gillibrand staffer, who would do exactly what she was told for eternity. If Kingson beats her today, it will be a very big deal.The Post, though, is more interested in "the fate of perhaps the biggest donor list in politics." They say "Sanders is facing a challenge almost as steep as a presidential campaign. How does a revolutionary persuade his supporters to continue the revolution with someone else? Can he maintain the enthusiasm of followers who were new to politics after falling in the primaries to establishment stalwart Hillary Clinton? Can he transfer his popularity to relatively unknown figures?"

On his website, Sanders has already started to make the transition from active presidential candidate to another kind of leader. “This is your movement,” it now says, showing a montage of diverse faces.And at the urging of his wife, Jane Sanders, he has been talking to his inner circle about launching a grass-roots organization to harness the energy of his supporters. Among aides, there is chatter about who might staff such an organization, which might resemble Democracy for America, the group that former Vermont governor Howard Dean launched following his failed 2004 presidential bid.Sanders’s profile in the Senate is expected to increase once he returns to the chamber full time, and aides say he will almost certainly seek reelection in 2018-- though it is unclear whether either will translate into more muscle on Capitol Hill. Sanders has suggested that he will try to mobilize his supporters around key issues and that he wants to lead the Health, Education, ­Labor and Pensions Committee, which has jurisdiction over many of the high-profile issues he pushed during his campaign.Sanders’s donor list, which the campaign says includes 2.7 million contributors across the country, is another uncertain-- and highly coveted-- asset. Sanders proved to be a surprisingly potent fundraiser, taking in more than $229 million as of last month, the vast majority in online, low-dollar increments.

Would donors to that list-- I'm one and over a thousand Blue America members are as well-- start giving money to Hillary or to right-of-center DCCC and DSCC candidates? Some might. I can't imagine any Blue America members doing so.

What is unclear is whether Sanders, who enjoys higher favorable numbers than Clinton or President Obama, will ever tell those voters to support the winner of the presidential primary contests. [That's absurd; it's very clear Bernie will hold his nose and endorse Hillary and tell his supporters to back her to defeat the Trump menace.]Clinton aides have privately expressed frustration over Sanders’s continuing campaign and refusal to this point to endorse her, a step they believe could help unify the party heading into the fall.“The intensity of his supporters is so much greater than the intensity for any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton,” said Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.), a Clinton endorser whose El Paso-based district went strongly for her but who suggested that Sanders could pull out voters who might normally skip elections. “In El Paso, she crushed him, and yet in terms of incoming calls and emails to our office, asking where to vote, it was like 3 to 1 Bernie. In Texas, he could get some of those folks who don’t traditionally vote to come out.”Sanders’s role is under discussion, but he has said a more immediate priority is trying to find common ground on the issues he championed during the primaries.“It’s not just Bernie Sanders saying, ‘Oh, yes, just vote for Hillary Clinton,’” Sanders told CNN on Sunday. “It is Hillary Clinton standing up and saying, ‘You know what? These are the things we need to do.’ And if she does the right thing, I am absolutely confident that the vast majority of my supporters will vote for her.”Sanders has been lobbying Clinton to embrace several of his proposals, including tuition-free public universities and a $15 minimum wage. Asked why he had yet to endorse Clinton during an appearance Friday on CBS This Morning, Sanders said he had not “heard her say the things that need to be said.”That struggle is visible in Sanders’s attempts to influence the Democratic Party platform, as well. A chief reason he has given for remaining an active candidate, the negotiations illustrate both the opportunity and the limitations of his newfound status.A draft document approved Saturday would move the party to the left on wages, banking reform and climate change, and represents several concessions by Clinton. But Clinton allies on the panel also resisted Sanders’s aggressive overtures on trade, several environmental issues and universal health care, a core of Sanders’s mission to tackle income inequality.There is some evidence that most Sanders supporters have already fallen in line behind Clinton. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday, just 8 percent of Democrats said they would vote for Trump; just 1 percent of Democrats and 3 percent of self-identified “liberals” said they would vote for the Green Party.The Clinton camp, meanwhile, is moving forward with the use of other high-powered campaign surrogates. On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another darling of the left and a potential running mate, will campaign with Clinton in the battleground state of Ohio. Obama is expected to join Clinton on the campaign trail soon.

When Kingson debated his establishment opponents Friday , they clashed on "whether to raise the minimum wage to a 'living wage' or specifically to $15, whether to expand Social Security or merely raise the cap on the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA.If a well-meaning but inconsequential hack like Deacon or Williams wins the primary, there's a good chance a pattern will repeat itself in the district. The Democrat will win in November when Democrats turn out to vote in the residential election. And then in 2018, a Republican will win because niether Deacon nor Williams will give any Democrats a reason to vote for them-- just the way the last last Democart in the seat, worthless New Dem Dan Maffei won in 2008 because of Obama, lost in 2010 because of what a terrible hack he turned out to be, won again in 2012 because of Obama again and then lost again in 2014, because of what a terrible hack he was when Democrats gave him a second chance. Neither Deacon nor Williams would alter that narrative one iota. Eric Kingson sure would, though.The other crucial primary in New York for progressives is taking place in NY-19, south and east of Kingson's district, where Zephyr Teachout faces the voters. She is highly favored to win, probably by a landslide. We'll update this post later with results from both districts.

UPDATE: Election ResultsIn Oklahoma City the results are painfully close.

In New York, the two big races were a split. In NY-19 Zephyr Teachout had a blowout-- 73% to 26% for Will Yandik. She'll be facing John Faso, who beat Andrew Heaney. But the other Berniecrat running, Eric Kingson in NY-24 came in second to establishment favorite Colleen Deacon. She scored 48% to his 32% and just 19% for the Steve Israel-recruited Steve Williams.Other notable races were in NY-01 (Suffolk County), where the races too close to call between two bad candidates, Anna Throne-Holst leads Dave Calone by 29 votes (50.06% to 49.79%). In NY-02, the Steve Israel seat, Tom Suozzi beat the Steve Israel cronies running. With 5 candidates, Suozzi took 35% of the vote and Israel's puppet, Steve Stern, took 22% who was tied with Jon Kaiman for second place. And the millionaire gay Zionist anti-peace candidate who the Hassidic rabbis ran against Jerry Nadler to get even with Nadler for his support of an anti-nuke deal with Iran, lost pitifully. Nadler won 25,527 votes (88.90%) to Mikhail Oliver Rosenberg's 2,949 (10.26%).